UConn men’s basketball team hopes to pull upset at SMU

UConn’s Jalen Adams, left, dribbles around Temple’s Shizz Alston Jr. in the first half from action earlier this month. The Huskies play at SMU Thursday evening.

UConn’s Jalen Adams, left, dribbles around Temple’s Shizz Alston Jr. in the first half from action earlier this month. The Huskies play at SMU Thursday evening.

Photo: JESSICA HILL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Photo: JESSICA HILL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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UConn’s Jalen Adams, left, dribbles around Temple’s Shizz Alston Jr. in the first half from action earlier this month. The Huskies play at SMU Thursday evening.

UConn’s Jalen Adams, left, dribbles around Temple’s Shizz Alston Jr. in the first half from action earlier this month. The Huskies play at SMU Thursday evening.

Photo: JESSICA HILL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

UConn men’s basketball team hopes to pull upset at SMU

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DALLAS >> It wasn’t long ago that playing in Dallas meant good things for UConn. Or don’t you remember that 2014 national championship, won at AT&T Stadium? Still have that “Lone Star State-ment” t-shirt in your dresser?

More recently, however, Big “D” has meant little more than a Big “L” for the Huskies. UConn has played SMU on the road three times since the American Athletic Conference was formed, and all three have been losses. There was a 74-65 loss in the opening of the renovated Moody Coliseum on Jan. 4, 2014; a 73-55 thrashing in an ESPN College Gameday bout on Feb. 14, 2015; and the worst of them all — an 80-54 trouncing last March on SMU’s Senior Day.

“It’s a tough atmosphere to play in,” said sophomore Jalen Adams, who’s only experienced one of those losses first-hand. “The crowd is right on top of you.”

It doesn’t figure to be any easier on Thursday, when the Huskies (7-10, 2-3 AAC) face SMU at Moody (7 p.m., ESPN2). Although many of the familiar faces are gone — back-to-back AAC player of the year Nic Moore, power forward stalwart Markus Kennedy and, of course, Hall of Fame head coach Larry Brown — the Mustangs are still very formidable. Under first-year coach Tim Jankovich, who took over after Brown abruptly retired amid stalled contract negotiations in July, SMU is 15-4 overall and 5-1 in the AAC, its lone loss a 66-64 setback at first-place, No. 22 Cincinnati.

“It’s just a tough environment,” Kevin Ollie said of Moody. “They’ve got a great crowd. It must be a great shooting venue for them. Just a great atmosphere. That’s what home teams do. We have a great advantage, they do a great job. They fill it up, it gets loud. It’s just a great homecourt advantage for them. But you make that homecourt advantage by the talent you have, how you play together, and how you feed off the crowd and get the crowd going. They do a good job at Moody Coliseum of that.”

SMU has largely had UConn’s number in any venue since the two have been conference mates. The Mustangs also won in Hartford in 2014 and beat the Huskies in the AAC championship game in 2015. SMU is 4-2 against the Huskies the past three seasons.

“I feel like SMU always wakes up to play UConn,” Adams noted, “so it’s always a big game when we go against them.”

UConn is still smarting from a 72-69 loss to Georgetown on Saturday in Washington, D.C. The Huskies led by 14 points four minutes into the second half and seemed en route to their season-best third straight win. Then, the wheels fell off.

“We played well for the first 24 minutes,” Ollie pointed out. “Those last 16 minutes kinda unraveled for us. But we learned from it, had some good film sessions, some good practices.”

And now, the Huskies get thrown back into the fire at Moody, their own personal house of horrors the past few seasons.

“Their fans really come out and support them when they play against us,” said Rodney Purvis. “That Larry Brown-Kevin Ollie tradition was started, as well. It’s always a tough place to play. We just tried out best to be prepared for this week.”

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